SingStar Queen about what you’d expect: epic, difficult

SingStar Queen features a great selection of the band's music to test your …

When people talk about the greatest band that ever was, you hear about Led Zeppelin, people bring up the Beatles, some argue for the The Who, and certain misguided souls may even make a case for U2. My vote? Queen. No front man had better charisma, no band mastered as many styles, no song catalog carried so many winners. Freddie Mercury was a god of arena rock—no one could rock so many people so effortlessly.

I was more than a little excited when Sony sent over a copy of SingStar Queen for the PS3. The SingStar franchise and Queen were made for each other, and the track list combined a good selection of hits with some memorable deep cuts. "Hammer to Fall"? Hell yes. "One Vision"? I say OK. "Who Wants to Live Forever"? That was the bomb in Highlander! The only problem with SingStar Queen became immediately apparent when I hooked up my microphone, got out the mic stand, and began to play... and by that I mean sing. What cripples this game?

Guess what, you're not Freddie Mercury

And you never will be. Matching your own vocals against one of music's bests vocalists is a losing game. Sure, it's fun to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with friends after you've ingested some liquid courage, and you can certainly get a room singing along with the chorus of "Fat Bottomed Girls," but the fact remains that these songs are hard to sing, even if you're a reasonably talented vocalist... which I am not.

Also, keep in mind SingStar doesn't feature any instruments, just vocals. It would be interesting to see how the guitar work of Brian May translated to a Rock Band or Guitar Hero setting, but when you're dealing with only vocals, it's quite a challenging experience even on the lower difficulty levels.

That doesn't make this a bad game, just a humbling one. Queen is a great band with a ton of great songs, and SingStar Queen has a great cross-section of songs and videos to keep you entertained; anyone who has even heard of the band will find at least a few songs they want to sing. Just be aware that Mercury didn't walk into being one of the best respected front men ever to have lived, he earned it with some seriously golden pipes.

Unless you share at least a little of that talent, you may want to pass on this one. If you're feeling brave however, this is a great way to connect with some classic music. Just be sure to pick up the PS3 release, if you have the system. It features five songs not found on the PS2 version of the game, and that's more than worth the extra $10; the PS3 version is $39.99, the PS2 version is $29.99.

It's also worth noting how great a package this is for what amounts to a track pack. Readers gave us flack for suggesting Harmonix should have added some country flair to the Country Music Track Pack for Rock Band, but here you get Queen videos, performances, and flavor. One more cool feature: you can control the menus using your voice; no need for a controller. This is something we'd love to see in other rhythm games. Keep in mind if you buy the standalone game, you're going to need to purchase a microphone or two. The community aspects you find by hooking up a PlayStation Eye are also worth pointing out: the game takes pictures and video of your performances so you can go back and laugh at yourself, or others, online.

It's a good package, at a good price, but after one fun night of making fun of how badly everyone sings, it's hard to imagine this is going to get a ton of play for anyone but players with serious vocal chops. For that reason, we're going to suggest you rent before you take the plunge.